Chapter 141: Chapter 141: The Iron Siege
Chapter 141: The Iron Siege
The sky above the Velkrath Imperium was an absolute void.
Thousands of Abyssal Wyverns eclipsed the moon. Their colossal, leathery wings beat with a deafening rhythm that vibrated in my teeth.
The Zenith Academy did not wait for a parley. They did not send an envoy.
They made the first move.
"Incoming from above!" Nyssa screamed over the roar of the wind.
The Wyverns opened their massive, jagged jaws. They did not breathe fire.
They dropped payloads of rotting flesh.
Hundreds of Vexis’s undead thralls plummeted from the dark sky like fleshy meteors. Their swollen, stitched bodies glowed with unstable, volatile necrotic energy.
They slammed directly into the Kinetic Dispersion Dome.
BOOOM. BOOOM. BOOOM.
The transparent dome rippled with violent green and blue hexagons. Nyssa’s architectural genius instantly absorbed the massive kinetic shockwaves.
Rotting blood and toxic green soul-fire rained down against the magical shield, harmlessly sizzling into steam before it could touch my city.
The dome held perfectly.
A massive tear in the dark clouds suddenly spiraled open.
A colossal magical projection of a skeletal face materialized in the sky. It was easily two hundred feet tall. Searing green soul-fire burned fiercely in its empty, cavernous eye sockets.
"Is this your grand defense, Goblin?" Vexis’s raspy, echoing voice hissed across the entire battlefield. The sound of a thousand scraping bones layered beneath his words.
The Lich’s projection clicked its massive skeletal jaw in pure amusement.
"A fragile glass shield to delay the inevitable? You disappoint me! Archlich Malacor demands your brass bones, Sovereign. Drop the dome and surrender, and I promise to strip your flesh with minimum agony!"
I stared up at the glowing green skull. I felt no fear, only absolute disgust.
I did not yell. I brought my heavy Arcane Radio to my helmet. I had connected the frequency directly to the external amplifiers mounted on the bastion walls.
"I am going to grind your skull into powder," I replied. My heavy, baritone voice echoed across the plains, drowning out the shrieks of the Wyverns. "And I am going to feed the dust to my wolves."
I lowered the radio. I raised my right gauntlet.
"Snipers," I commanded. "Clear my sky."
Along the fifty-foot-high black iron battlements, thousands of my soldiers took their positions.
They aimed their newly forged High-Velocity Arcane Penetration Rifles directly into the dark clouds. The long iron barrels locked into place along the brass railings.
"Target the green flames in their skulls!" a Goblin commander barked. "Fire!"
BANG. BANG. BANG. BANG.
The deafening cracks of thousands of rifles firing simultaneously shattered the night air. It sounded like a massive thunderstorm tearing the earth apart.
Nyssa’s engineering was absolutely flawless. The heavy brass casings ejected rapidly onto the metal grating, clinking continuously, while the pure kinetic mana rounds ripped upward through the sky.
The bullets did not just hit the falling undead thralls. They completely obliterated them.
SPLAT. CRACK. FWOOSH.
The arcane rounds tore perfectly through the rotting skulls, instantly extinguishing the green soul-fire inside. Without the magical tether, the volatile undead exploded harmlessly mid-air, miles away from the dome.
The sky lit up with hundreds of small, green explosions.
The snipers did not stop. They smoothly racked the bolts of their rifles and adjusted their aim higher.
SCREEEEECH.
Dozens of Abyssal Wyverns shrieked in sheer agony as the high-velocity rounds easily pierced their thick, A-Grade leathery scales. The massive beasts tumbled blindly from the sky, crashing heavily into the muddy plains of the Ashfall Marches below.
But the sky was only half the battle.
On the ground, the earth trembled beneath the synchronized march of massive iron boots.
The Corrupted Paladins had reached the outer trenches.
They were towering A-Grade High-Orcs, encased in dark, corrupted holy armor. They wielded massive, jagged broadswords that bled a sickening, purplish-white light. The holy magic had been violently twisted to burn away life.
They marched relentlessly toward the razor-wire barricades, entirely unbothered by the Wyverns crashing around them.
They expected to slowly siege the walls. They expected us to cower behind the black iron and shoot from afar.
Rolf had an entirely different plan.
"Open the lower gates!" Rolf roared from the courtyard below.
The massive Silver Wolf stood at the absolute base of the wall. He was flanked by five thousand heavily armed Orc and Beastman Vanguard troops. Their weapons were drawn. Their eyes were wild with predatory hunger.
The heavy iron gears ground together violently. The primary gates of the Velkrath Imperium slammed open.
Rolf did not wait for his men. He dropped to all fours and launched himself out into the bloody mud like a silver cannonball.
"For the Sovereign!" Rolf howled, his voice vibrating with absolute bloodlust.
"For the Forge!" the Vanguard troops roared in unison.
They charged out into the Ashfall Marches, diving directly into the razor-wire trenches to meet the Corrupted Paladins in brutal, close-quarters combat.
It was absolute chaos.
A Corrupted Paladin stepped over a trench and swung his massive, glowing broadsword downward. He aimed to cleave Rolf entirely in half.
"Die, filth!" the Corrupted Orc fanatic screamed.
Rolf did not dodge. He simply stood up on his hind legs and took the devastating strike directly to his chest.
CLANG!
The corrupted holy blade slammed violently into Rolf’s new Symbiotic Origin Metal armor.
The pitch-black biological plating did not shatter. It didn’t even dent.
Instead, the living armor reacted instantly to the extreme kinetic impact. It rippled across his fur, hardening aggressively to absorb the kinetic force. Deep red veins pulsed violently across the dark metal on Rolf’s chest. The armor fed on the enemy’s strength.
The Corrupted Paladin’s eyes widened in sheer disbelief. "What..."
"My turn," Rolf growled, flashing his terrifying silver fangs.
SWISH.
Rolf’s massive claws blurred through the air. He moved far faster than the heavy A-Grade Paladin could process.
SQUELCH.
Rolf decapitated the High-Orc Paladin in a single, brutal swipe. The dark helmet, with the severed head still trapped inside, flew spinning into the mud.
Rolf grabbed the falling headless corpse by the breastplate. With terrifying ease, he casually hurled the eight-hundred-pound body backward into the advancing enemy lines.
CRASH.
"Is that the best the Academy can do?!" Rolf roared to the dark sky, his living armor pulsating heavily with absorbed energy. "Send me something that can actually fight!"
Inspired by their commander, the Beastman Vanguard clashed violently with the Corrupted Paladins. Iron met enchanted steel. Claws tore through dark armor. The mud of the Ashfall Marches immediately ran black with monster blood.
I watched the slaughter from the high walls. My brass hands rested heavily on the railing.
"The Vanguard holds the ground, and the snipers hold the sky," Nyssa reported, stepping up beside me. Her glowing green eyes were rapidly processing the tactical data across the battlefield. "But Commander Kaelen has not revealed himself yet."
"He is waiting for an opening," I stated coldly.
I looked out over the burning, chaotic expanse of the Ashfall Marches. The Zenith Academy was bleeding, but the night was still young. They had thousands of troops left.
I ignited my core. The Fire of Rage began to bleed from my heavy armor, superheating the cold night air around me.
"Let Kaelen come," I whispered into the wind. "I have a Kingdom to defend."
The siege is in full effect! Rolf’s biological armor is proving to be completely broken in close-quarters combat, and Nyssa’s snipers are locking down the sky.
